v1.2.3

New features

• Arithmetic operations can now be applied on BSDistribution
  • "+" and "-" between BSDistributions with the same number of modes
  • "*" and "/" between floats and BSDistributions

Improvements

• HTTP error message is now clearer

Breaking changes

• The BSDistribution internal representation has been changed. It must now be imported directly from perceval and no longer from exqalibur

You can contact us on Quandela community forum

v1.2.2

Improvements

• Sped up the creation of BS components

Bug fixes

• Fixed Sampler's iterations crashing when used with a RemoteProcessor
• Numeric overflows in backend computations are now properly caught and raised

v1.2.1 The Royal Court

New features

• The main computation classes have been ported to Exqalibur
  • Noisy computations should be faster and use less memory
  • SLOS is now fully in Exqalibur by default
  • Simulators (both probability and sampling) are now in Exqalibur, and will be used by default if the backends exists in Exqalibur (e.g. SLOS, Clifford)
• RemoteProcessor now have a get_current_noise() method that returns a NoiseModel corresponding to its performance.
• RemoteProcessor specs are now a dedicated object type that ensures some fields are always available. This should also provide code hints for your IDE
• Fourier interferometers can now be constructed through a helper method of the Unitary class

Improvements

• The "postselect" can now be changed in the Sampler's iterations
• The Unitary class now have a random() method to make a random unitary.
• The Unitary class can now take directly a numpy array instead of a Matrix

Bug fixes

• RemoteProcessor's experiment can now be changed without breaking it
• RemoteProcessor was raising an error when having asymetrical heralds
• The precision in the Sampler's probability computations depended on the presence of iterations
• The Grover's search notebook is now closer to the process proposed in its source material
• The modulus fidelity was returning complex values
• Circuit deserialization have been fixed for nested circuits with parameters
• Optical components could added after detectors in some cases

Breaking changes

• Although some classes were ported to Exqalibur, their python versions can still be accessed if needed
  • No class name has been changed, so Simulator or SLOSBackend still points to the python version
  • The python SLOS is still available in Processors under the name "SLOS_LEGACY"
• Tokens that were saved before perceval 0.13 will no longer be loaded by perceval due to previous changes to their storage
  • Loading them and saving them in a perceval 1.1 should be enough to do the transition
• Importing the Processor class from the components submodule is now deprecated
  • Processor should now be imported directly from perceval's root, or from the runtime submodule
• The new PlatformSpecs object that is now returned by RemoteProcessor.specs should be accessed through its attributes and no longer as a dictionary. While this remains possible, it is now deprecated.
• Catalog items' build_processor() is now deprecated. build_experiment() should be used instead

A detailed documentation on how to update your Perceval code to version 1.2 is available here: https://perceval.quandela.net/docs/v1.2/legacy.html

You can contact us on Quandela community forum

v1.1.0 The Round Table

New features

• Python 3.14 is now supported.
• JobGroup
  • Two new async methods to launch jobs, launch_async_jobs and relaunch_async_failed_jobs, that launch as many jobs as possible.
  • New cancel_all method.
  • Jobs coming from a JobGroup should now be grouped together on the Quandela Cloud interface using the name of the JobGroup.
• PPNR detectors have a new wire_efficiency parameter, allowing to represent losses directly within the detector.
• The cloud target url can now be saved in RemoteConfig.

Improvements

• PersistentData folder can now be specified using a PCVL_PERSISTENT_PATH environment variable, or falls back to a temp folder if the default path is not writable.
• Sped-up computation with Heralds and non-perfect detectors.
• HTTP errors received during the use of a RemoteProcessor or a RemoteJob are more explicit.
• SLAP backend can now directly simulate feed-forward in usual cases.

Bug fixes

• Duplicated Parameter names are now correctly detected when inserting a new component into a Processor.
• Processor.get_parameters now successfully gives the parameters defined in any inserted FFCircuitProvider.
• RemoteProcessor.estimate_required_shots and RemoteProcessor.estimate_expected_samples now work with non-unitary experiments.
• Conversion from BSDistribution to BSCount or BSSamples was forgetting the 0-photon states.
• JobGroup was unable to take a Job containing an iteration list containing an input state or a noise model.
• PNR detectors can now limit the number of photons.
• Tomography will now work with RemoteProcessor.

Breaking changes

Even though the changes in the API brought by the 1.1.0 version were targeted to be minimal, there are still a few breaking changes:

• Following Python cycle of life, python 3.9 is no longer supported.
• Linux version requirement has been increased. We now support:
  • Debian 10+
  • Ubuntu 18.10+
  • Fedora 29+
  • CentOS/RHEL 8+
• RemoteConfig.set_cloud_maximal_job_count is deprecated as JobGroup now retrieves the number of launchable jobs directly from the cloud.
• The order of the parameters in Circuit.compute_unitary was inconsistent with the order for this method on components, so it has been changed.
• The .copy() methods now perform deepcopies (was previously something between shallow and deep copies). This method has been removed for Processors.

A detailed documentation on how to update your Perceval code to version 1.1 is available here: https://perceval.quandela.net/docs/v1.1/legacy.html

You can contact us on Quandela community forum

v1.0.1 - The Grail Encounter

Improvements

• In legacy, we clarified that BasicState with distinguishability noise should use the new NoisyFockState format (i.e. "|{0}>" instead of "|{_:0}>")

Bug fixes

• Fix Expression and Parameter copy.
• Circuit and Experiment containing several times the same Parameter can now be copied properly using .copy().
• Simulator allowed AnnotatedFockState inputs when it shouldn't
• BasicState can be initialised from a numpy.array again
• Fixed Two-particle bosonic-fermionic quantum walk example notebook
• Fixed typos and missing links in the user documentation

v1.0.0 - The Grail Encounter

After a long wait, Perceval has finally reached version 1!

New features and reasons to upgrade

• The user documentation has been completely revamped.

  • Its improved structure is more natural, especially for newcomers,
  • The tutorials section was split in lessons divided into three levels (beginner, advanced and expert),
  • A particular care was given to Perceval and exqalibur code reference which now covers all existing features!

• It is now possible to send Experiments containing feed-forward to the Cloud. Please note that only a limited list of platforms can handle feed-forward (at the time of its release, only "sim:slos" has this capability).

• Noisy simulations were optimised a lot, through an improved preprocessing of noisy input states, the use of light-weight FockState representation during computations and an improved algorithm. It is now consuming way less memory and shows speed-ups up to 50x on larger noisy simulations.

Improvements

• CircuitOptimizer now supports an initial guess

• A Herald can be added on only one side of an Experiment, making it asymmetrical (user input state and output state won't have the same size anymore)

• Better probability threshold management in chained tensor products of distributions

• Use herald values during an imperfect Detector simulation

• Heralds and PostSelect are now transmitted between simulation layers for LC and TD components

• Optimized usage of an FSMask in SLAP

• Optimized the SLAP.prob_distribution call

• Optimized the Source model algorithm (by moving it to exqalibur)

• NoiseModel now provides pythonic access to its attributes

• A request payload may now be generated without connecting to a Cloud provider

• Enhanced Scaleway provider code

• Shor's algorithm example notebook has been modernised

• Rendering

  • pdisplay handles BSSamples
  • Sped up the rendering of large SVDistribution

• Remote computing

  • Perceval now checks a new constraint from remote platforms, telling whether they can handle multiple input photons per mode
  • Read RemoteProcessor.status property to know the current status of the corresponding remote platform
  • Add field cloud_maximal_job_count to RemoteConfig, limiting the number of concurrent Job run at once when calling JobGroup.run_parallel
  • JobGroup.list_existing() method was renamed to list_locally_saved(), for clarity
  • The behaviour of get_results is now consistent for failed jobs (LocalJob or RemoteJob).

Bug fixes

• Experiment composition

  • When composing two experiments or processors, the right-hand-side detectors now have priority
  • Adding a single component to an Experiment on non-consecutive modes correctly applies an inverted permutation after it

• Circuit and Processor rendering

  • Modes are now rendered below the input ports
  • Fixed a bug where a subcircuit and its container box would be shifted
  • Fixed a bug in specific feed-forwarded circuits rendering

• Fix handling of min_detected_photons in the NoisySamplingSimulator

• Fix Expression.fixed property

• Fix a crash that could occur in Clifford & Clifford 2017 sampling back-end

• Internal logger can now be setup to write in a file at a path containing non-ASCII characters

• A Job does not forget its name anymore when reloaded from a JobGroup

• Fix the result of PS.definition()

Breaking changes

With the release of Perceval version 1 comes a list of updated features and syntax. Here's a list of the major potential code breaks:

• To achieve large performance gains in noisy simulations, the FockState class was split into three. While the pcvl.BasicState retains most of its versatility, user code might be broken by this code.
• In some computations, physical_perf and logical_perf scores have been merged into a global_perf
• Gate based to LO circuits converters were moved from Perceval to a new package perceval-interop. Read its documentation.

A detailed documentation on how to update your Perceval code to version 1 is available here: https://perceval.quandela.net/docs/v1.0/legacy.html

You can contact us on Quandela community forum

v0.13.2 - Castle of Wonders

Bug fixes

• Fixed copy of Experiment when holding a defined state
• Fixed a memory leak in Experiment

v0.13.1 - Castle of Wonders

New Features

• The StateGenerator is now able to generate photonic states based on new rules

Improvements

• The catalog items now expose a build_experiment method that allows creating an Experiment without creating a Processor, allowing easier integration into RemoteProcessor.
• Non BasicState input in a Processor require setting the min_detected_photons_filter. The error message when omitting it was not human readable. The message is now clearer.

Bug fixes

• Fixed copy of Experiment and Processor that now give a deep copy of the original object.

v0.13.0 - Castle of Wonders

New features and reasons to upgrade

• Noisy states aren't completely computed anymore for sampling simulations, allowing for 15+ noisy photon samplings.

• Perceval Parameter class now supports math expressions with the new Expression class
  See: https://perceval.quandela.net/docs/v0.13/reference/utils.html#expression

• Perceval handles proxies configuration
  See: https://perceval.quandela.net/docs/notebooks/Remote_computing.html

• Complete overhaul of the JobGroup feature, to improve its reliability and reduce the number of http requests to a minimum

• Introduce a new noise parameter in NoiseModel: the phase error
  See: https://perceval.quandela.net/docs/reference/noise_model.html

Improvements

• Native optimised library (exqalibur) is now available for Linux ARM64, making Perceval installable on such an environment (i.e. you can now install Perceval in a Linux virtual machine running on a recent Mac computer)
• Detectors may now be simulated in non-unitary Processors
• Perceval component catalog now contains all major 1-qubit gates
  See: https://perceval.quandela.net/docs/reference/catalog.html
• JobGroup now has __len__ and __getitem__ operators
• Simulator masks as much of the Fock space as possible to improve memory consumption and computation times (in case of superposed and/or noisy input)
• PostSelect.merge method ignores duplicate conditions
• Components containing variable parameters can now be inverted
• Beam splitter reflectivity to theta conversion manages variable parameters
• Removed several meaningless user warnings

Bug fixes

• Fixed Perceval logging system using a Python logger
• Circuit and Processor renderers wrap and/or reduce text size when it's too long
• Circuits using the same named variable multiple times will now be correctly serialised/deserialised

Other changes

• Perceval no longer deduces the min_detected_photon_filter for noisy and remote simulations. It is now mandatory to pass a value.
• min_detected_photons_filter value in a processor containing heralds is now the minimum expected photon count ignoring any ancillary mode and herald
• Source is no longer a valid parameter when instantiating a Processor

For more information, see: https://perceval.quandela.net/docs/v0.13/legacy.html

You can contact us on the Perceval forum

v0.12.2 - The Bleeding Lance

Improvements

• Detector simulation now uses the optional progress callback
• Renamed JobGroup method list_unfinished_jobs to list_unsuccessful_jobs for clarity
• Removed a warning which always occurred when injecting noise in a converter

Bug fixes

• Fixed post-selection conditions composition in converters
• Fixed heralds display in highly nested circuits
• Fixed JobGroup not saving the refreshed jobs status in a parallel run